Notes for trust officers, private bankers and others concerned with estate and trust planning, from a Merrill Anderson Senior Editor and his retired mentor.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

My New Executor? Software Code, of Course!

"This is the first time in legal history that the administration of a will is handed over to a non-human. In this case, software code is the executor." So boasts Bockchain Apparatus, a Bitcoin 2.0 startup.

The company says that in the foreseeable future we will have a software/network combination which is the executor of the decedent's last will and testament. Bitcoin 2.0 protocols are used to make actual dispositions and disbursements of the assets in an estate, and are able to do so while taking into consideration many facts which are indeterminate at the time of the will's creation, similar to traditional trust frameworks.

The software "executor" function is built into a blockchain will, which can be updated and revised.